


The Strongest

by Tea (graychalk)



Series: The Strongest [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Death, Gen, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-14
Updated: 2006-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graychalk/pseuds/Tea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sakura became the strongest just for them and for this moment, but sometimes even that isn't enough. A future snapshot of a Team 7 confrontation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Strongest

**Author's Note:**

> No spoilers, but inspired by and written right after manga chapters 305-306 were released.

  
In the end, Sakura lies unmoving on the sharp bath of rocks and blinks up at the sun. She tries to recall another time when the sky looks this majestic and clear, but she finds that she does not want to remember. She wants to stay there forever, just watching the birds fly across the sky in their carefree manner. Instead, she turns her head to the side and stares blankly into the distance.  
  
She doesn't notice the wide, angry chasm that tore up the ground. She doesn't notice the trees that had been ripped from the roots scattered about. She doesn't even notice the large boulder crushing its weight against her legs, and she doesn't pay any attention to the fact that she can no longer feel anything in the lower part of her body.  
  
10 feet. His dark eyes are open, staring right back at her, and Sakura thinks he's as beautiful as ever. She doesn't see that he's barely even recognizable anymore, and she doesn't see how he has a gaping hole in his chest where his heart should have been.  
  
12 feet. His blue eyes are closed to her, and this time she sees the blood. It covers every part of his body, pouring out of the gashes that seems to keep stretching across his skin. She sees so much red that her eyes begin to water, and she thinks she's crying blood.  
  
A terrifyingly savage scream pierces through the still air, and she wonders where it's coming from. It takes only a moment longer for her to realize that it's being forcefully wrenched out of her own lungs.  
  
Her body shakes and someone kneels down next to her, blocking her view of red. She still sees them, the imprint digging its claws and carving itself into her. She squeezes her eyes shut, and the image stays.  
  
It doesn't go away.  
  
It won't go away.  
  
Gentle murmurs coax her, but Sakura hears only three words.  
  
It makes her wonder how it is that she became the strongest when she can crumble so easily from just hearing them.  
  
It makes her wonder when Sasuke had become the man of her nightmares and when Naruto became bigger than the world itself.  
  
 _Sakura, they're gone._  
  
She lies there under the glaring sun, and she doesn't understand how she became the strongest for them, and in the end, became the one who lost everything.

  



End file.
